Kent's Birth Story

This pregnancy was a bit different than my first, I was working at a hair salon full time and was on my feet a lot more this time around.  I was meeting with my OB weekly to monitor my blood pressure due to my history of gestational hypertension.  At my 37 week appointment my OB checked me for dilation and to see if I was effaced.  I was dilated at two centimeters and my effacing had progressed as it should.  We set an appointment to be induced on May 24, my 39 week mark and I was thrilled to have that date set.  A few days later my induction was moved up to the 22 due to hospital scheduling, I didn't complain about that!

A week later I went in for another appointment and had progressed to four centimeters and 70 percent effaced.  I went on to work that day and took things easy since I had progressed so much in just a week.  Three days later (38 weeks and two days gestational) I went to work as I normally did for a five hour shift, just a quick work day.  I had been at work for 2 hours or so, and hadn't done too much physically.  I took a few haircuts here and there and mainly did office work.  I started feeling contractions during the half-way mark of my shift and sat in my office to rest.  The contractions were strong and were coming and going for a good 30 minutes.  I went home early that evening and rested for a few hours.  After the contractions had stopped for a good while I had decided to clean a bit and went to bed.

The next morning I woke up at 7:30 feeling like I had to fart and just laid in bed to just let it rip...but it wasn't that...my water broke.  I held in as much as I could and rushed to the bathroom to avoid making a huge mess in bed.  I hopped in the shower.  Fifteen minutes later I started contracting but it was more mild compared to the night before.  I began monitoring them on my phone and went on with making breakfast and getting ready for the day.  It was 8:30-ish, maybe a little before, and the contractions were definitely more consistent and I knew it was time to go to the hospital.  I woke up my husband and we all got ready to drop off my daughter with my sister-in-law.  We arrived at the hospital around 10:45, checked in and I was at five centimeters.  We got the epidural going and I progressed to seven centimeters at 12:20.  I had tested positive for the Strep-B test and had started the first round of antibiotics.  No Pitocin was needed this time around, I was progressing so quickly.

My OB arrived and got ready.  He said he was surprised I wasn't in sooner to have this baby!  We got set up and started pushing at 1:50 pm.  Pushing this time around felt a lot more difficult, so much more pressure than I recalled with my first labor.  I felt sweat running down my face and back from working so hard to get my baby out, the pushing felt never ending.  Luckily my L&D nurses were so encouraging and said that things were progressing so well.  After about 30 minutes of pushing my baby boy was here!  Kent Pearce Thorne was born at 2:21 pm, weighing 7 lbs and 3 oz, 19.5 inches long.  He came out with such a calm demeanor; he cried a little bit but not that much.  Soon after he just looked around, observing his surroundings.  He even was calm at the weighing station and while he had his first diaper put on.  But he finally had arrived safely and we were so happy to have him join our little forever family.